Roller conveyors are used to transport goods carriers such as e.g. pallets. In the automobile industry they are often used to transfer vehicle bodies or parts of vehicle bodies between individual processing stations. The vehicle bodies are in said case fastened on so-called skids. This term is used for transport racks that have two mutually parallel skid runners. During the conveying operation the skid runners rest on rollers of the roller conveyor, which are disposed successively in conveying direction along two tracks. When the rollers are set in rotation, the skid with the vehicle body fastened thereon is fed in conveying direction, wherein it is sufficient to provide only some of the rollers with a rotary drive.
The manufacturers of roller conveyors of the initially described type currently on the market are generally global players. They encounter widely differing locally available system voltages in the various countries where they intend to commission roller conveyors. It is a frequent occurrence to come across voltages of between 200 V and 600 V. The different locally available output voltages compel the manufacturers of roller conveyors to redesign each roller conveyor that is to be manufactured, buy in and individually assemble and wire components corresponding to the locally available system voltage and provide costly warehousing for different components. The piece numbers of the individual components remain comparatively low. All of this contributes towards relatively high costs.
The present invention is provided to solve these and other problems.